Fair Isaac Corporation - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Executive Summary

• Q2 FY2025 revenue was $498.7M (+15% y/y) and GAAP diluted EPS was $6.59 (+28% y/y); non-GAAP diluted EPS was $7.81 (+27% y/y).
• Versus S&P Global consensus, revenue was a slight miss ($500.6M estimate*) while EPS was a clear beat ($7.44 estimate*); management reiterated full-year guidance, citing macro uncertainty.
• Scores segment growth remained robust (+25% y/y to $297.0M), led by B2B (+31% y/y); mortgage origination revenue rose +48% y/y and pricing actions are feathering in across categories.
• Software ARR growth moderated (+3% y/y; platform ARR +17% y/y; non-platform -3% y/y), with CCS usage headwinds tied to customer outreach timing; NRR totaled 102% (platform 110%, non-platform 96%).
• Potential catalysts: continued platform innovation (FICO Marketplace launch, dacadoo AI underwriting partnership) and FICO World announcements; capital structure flexibility increased with $1.5B 6.000% senior notes due 2033.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

• What Went Well

  • “We again delivered strong results with revenue growth of 15%, and even stronger earnings growth” and reiterated FY25 guidance for double-digit growth in revenue and earnings.
  • Scores segment strength: B2B +31% y/y, mortgage origination revenue +48% y/y; management highlighted growing adoption of FICO Score 10T across originations and servicing portfolios.
  • Non-GAAP operating margin expanded to 58% (+450bps y/y), supported by disciplined opex and efficiencies; FCF was $65M in the quarter and $677M TTM (+45% y/y).

• What Went Wrong

  • Software growth mixed: segment revenue +2% y/y with total ARR +3% y/y; non-platform ARR -3% and CCS usage headwinds as customers delayed/down-sized outreach programs amid macro volatility.
  • Revenue slightly missed consensus; management chose not to raise FY25 guidance due to uncertainty, implying limited near-term visibility on usage normalization.
  • Professional services declined 9% y/y and was impacted by milestone timing into April; opex expected higher in H2 due to FICO World and marketing.

Transcript

Speaker 3

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the second quarter 2025 FICO Earnings Conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advised when your hand is raised. To ascribe your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Dave Singleton. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Good afternoon, and thank you for attending FICO's second quarter earnings call. I'm Dave Singleton, Vice President of Investor Relations, and I'm joined today by our CEO, Will Lansing, and our CFO, Steve Weber. Today, we issued a press release that describes financial results compared to the prior year. On this call, management will also discuss results in comparison with the prior quarter to facilitate an understanding of the run rate of the business. Certain statements made in this presentation are forward-looking under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Those statements involve any risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Information concerning these risks and uncertainties is contained in the company's filings with the SEC, particularly in the risks, forwards, and forward-looking statements portion of such filings. Copies are available from the SEC, from the FICO website, or from our investor relations team.

This call will also include statements regarding certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the company's earnings release and regulation G-schedule issued today for a reconciliation of each of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measure. The earnings release and regulation G-schedule are available on the investor relations page on the company's website at fico.com or on the SEC's website at sec.gov. A replay of this webcast will also be available through April 29, 2026. I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Will Lansing.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Dave. Thank you, everyone, for joining us for our second quarter earnings call. In the investor relations section of our website, we've posted some financial highlight slides. We'll be referring to them during this earnings announcement. We had another strong quarter, and we are reiterating our fiscal 2025 guidance. As shown on page two of the second quarter financial highlights, we reported quarter two revenues of $499 million, up 15% over last year. We reported $163 million in GAAP net income in the quarter, up 25%. We reported GAAP earnings of $6.59 per share, up 28% from the prior year. We reported $193 million in non-GAAP net income in the quarter, up 25%, and non-GAAP earnings of $7.81 per share, up 27% from the prior year. As you can see on page 10, we delivered free cash flow of $65 million in our second quarter.

Over the last four quarters, we delivered $677 million of free cash flow, which would be an increase of 45% over the trailing 12-month period ending March 31, 2024. We continue to return capital to our shareholders through buybacks by repurchasing 112,000 shares in quarter two. In our score segment, as you can see on page six of the presentation, our second quarter revenues were $297 million, up 25% versus the prior year. On the B2B side, quarter two revenues were up 31% versus the prior year, primarily driven by mortgage originations revenues. On the B2C side, quarter two revenues were up 6% versus the prior year, primarily driven by revenue from indirect channel partners. Second quarter mortgage origination revenues were up 48% versus the prior year. Mortgage origination revenue accounted for 54% of B2B revenue and 44% of total scores revenue.

Auto origination revenues were up 16%, while credit card, personal loan, and other originations revenues were flat versus the prior year. FICO continues to build financial inclusion globally. In the quarter, we announced a Kenya-specific FICO Score. Through our partnership with TransUnion, the FICO Score is part of a credit risk solution which empowers lenders to serve previously underserved consumers and small, micro, and medium-sized enterprises. We also continue to raise awareness of financial literacy. One way we do it is by encouraging consumers to manage their financial health by checking their free FICO Score at myfico.com/free. Over the last year, FICO has seen nearly a 70% increase in users accessing their free FICO Scores via MyFICO. I hope you'll tell all of your friends to get their free FICO Score at MyFICO. Most importantly, we continue to focus on innovation.

FICO Score Mortgage Simulator is now available for lender use through Xactus, the largest credit reseller in the mortgage industry. Mortgage professionals can leverage valuable insights from the simulator to help drive smarter decisions that can present more loan options and favorable interest rates for customers. We continue to drive strong adoption of FICO Score 10T for non-GSE loans, and we're seeing strong results from our early adopter program. Lenders who use the classic FICO score today can receive FICO Score 10T for free through this program so they can evaluate the advantages before fully moving to utilizing FICO's newest and most predictive score. Lenders in the program have been able to validate the power of FICO Score 10T in real-world mortgage underwriting, loan production, execution, and servicing.

Refer to the February 24th post in our FICO newsroom to see a list of recent additions to our growing list of FICO 10T adopters. As of today, we have clients with over $284 billion in annualized mortgage originations and about $1.43 trillion in eligible mortgage portfolio servicing that have signed up for FICO Score 10T. In our fourth segment, we delivered $202 million in quarter two revenue, up 2% from the prior year. The revenue increase was driven mainly by growth in license revenue recognized at a point in time, partially offset by a decline in professional services. We continue to drive growth in ARR and NRR through our land and expand strategy with expand driven by increased customer usage. As shown on page seven, the total ARR was up 3%, with platform ARR growing 17% and non-platform ARR declining 3%.

Total NRR for the quarter, shown on page eight, was 102%, with platform NRR at 110% and non-platform at 96%. ACV bookings for the quarter were $21.8 million compared to $16.8 million in the prior year. In our software business, we continue to expand our partner channels. FICO recently partnered with Fujitsu, a top digital servicing company in Japan. Together, we will accelerate digital transformation support for Japanese financial institutions, delivering a future of smarter, more connected banking and payments. This quarter, we announced a partnership with Dakadu to bring AI-powered precision to the life insurance industry. Dakadu is a Swiss-based technology company that develops solutions for digital health engagement and health risk quantification. By integrating FICO Platform with Dakadu's health risk quantification risk engine, we create a solution that enables insurers to target their life insurance products at specific profiles.

This allows Dakadu to design highly personalized insurance products for their customers using advanced decision science. Later in the call, I'll talk about our upcoming FICO World Conference, but first, let me pass it to Steve to provide further financial details.

Speaker 7

Thanks, and good afternoon, everyone. As Will mentioned, we had another good quarter with total revenue of $499 million and an increase of 15% over the prior year. Score segment revenues for the quarter were $297 million, up 25% from the prior year. B2B revenues were up 31%, driven primarily by mortgage originations revenues. Our B2C revenues were up 6% versus the prior year due to increased revenue from our indirect channel partners. Software segment revenues for the quarter were $202 million, up 2% from the prior year. On-premises and SaaS software revenue grew 4% year over year, while professional services declined 9%. We do expect Q3 professional services revenue to increase from the Q2 level. This quarter, 86% of total company revenues were derived from our Americas region, which is a combination of our North American and Latin America regions.

Our EMEA region generated 9% of revenues, and the Asia-Pacific region delivered 5%. Our total software ARR was $715 million, a 3% increase over the prior year. Platform ARR was $235 million, representing 33% of our total Q2 2025 ARR, up from 29% of total Q2 2024 ARR. Platform ARR grew 17% versus the prior year, while non-platform declined 3% to $480 million this quarter. We did see some CCS usage headwinds, both platform and non-platform, as some customers chose to either delay or downsize some of their customer outreach programs due to macro volatility. Our platform land and expand strategy continues to be successful. Our dollar-based net retention rate in the quarter was 102%. Platform NRR was 110%, while our non-platform NRR was 96%. Platform NRR was driven by a combination of new use cases and increased usage of existing use cases.

Our software ACV bookings for the quarter were $21.8 million compared to $16.8 million in the prior year. We have a healthy pipeline for the back half of this fiscal year. Turning now to our expenses for the quarter, as shown on page five of the financial highlight presentation, total operating expenses were $253 million this quarter versus $260 million in the prior quarter, a decrease of 3%. We expect expenses to be moderately higher in the back half of the year due mainly to our FICO World event and other marketing activities. Our non-GAAP operating margin, as shown in our reg G-schedule, was 58% for the quarter, compared with 53% in the same quarter last year. This means we delivered non-GAAP operating margin expansion of 450 basis points year over year. GAAP net income this quarter was $163 million, up 25% from the prior year's quarter.

Our non-GAAP net income was $193 million for the quarter, up 25% from the prior year's quarter. GAAP earnings per share this quarter were $6.59, up 28% from the prior year, and our non-GAAP earnings per share were $7.81, up 27% from the prior year. The effective tax rate for the quarter was 23.7%, and the operating tax rate was 24.9%. For the full year, we believe our net effective tax rate will be around 22%, and our recurring tax rate will be around 26%. Free cash flow for the quarter was $65 million, a 6% increase from the prior year. Free cash flow was $677 million over the last four quarters, an increase of 45% over the trailing 12-month period ended March 31, 2024. Our accounts receivable balance was up this quarter due to the timing of some large payments that were not received until early April.

We anticipate our free cash flow will accelerate in the second half of this fiscal year. At the end of the quarter, we had $192 million in cash and marketable investments. Our total debt at quarter end was $2.53 billion, with a weighted average interest rate of 5%. Currently, 51% of our total debt is fixed rate. Our floating rate debt is prepayable at any time, giving us the flexibility to use free cash flow to reduce outstanding floating rate debt balances in future periods. Turning to return of capital, we bought back 112,000 shares in the second quarter at an average price of $1,849 per share. We continue to view share repurchases as an attractive use of cash. With that, I'll turn it back to Will for closing comments.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Steve. The macroeconomic environment remains fluid, but our strategy and execution remain consistent. We are well-positioned for this fiscal year and remain confident in the fiscal year guidance that we've provided. Our continued innovations drive significant value to our customers. This quarter, we announced several examples. IA Financial Group leverages FICO Platform for expanding insurance underwriting. Nationwide adoption has led to increased speed in credit decisioning and rollout of new strategies. Lloyd's Bank has increased credit card approvals and new-to-bank consumer loan approvals. Next week, we're hosting FICO World in Hollywood, Florida, where many of our customers will highlight their own success stories from adopting FICO offerings. The four-day event brings together customers and prospective customers from around the globe to discuss the benefits of making real-time decisions at scale through the power of FICO Platform. Customers will explain the benefits of optimizing interactions with consumers using FICO Platform.

Those customers are realizing improved profits, increased customer acquisition and retention, reduced costs, growth in new product offerings, and improved employee efficiency. The event will showcase FICO Platform demonstrations and have exciting announcements related to bringing innovation to the market. Some of the content from FICO World will be available in the coming weeks on our YouTube channel. I'd encourage all of you to view the demonstrations and presentations to better understand our customers' excitement around this innovative technology. With that, I'll turn it back to Dave to open up the questions.

Speaker 5

Thanks, Will. This concludes our prepared remarks, and we're now ready to take questions. Operator, please open the lines.

Speaker 3

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. If you have a question or a comment at this time, please press star 11 on your telephone. If your question has been answered and you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press star 11 again. We'll pause for a moment while we compile our Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Manav Patnaik with Barclays. Your line is open.

Speaker 2

Thank you. Will, typically, this is your kind of beat-and-read type quarter. I just wanted some perspective on how you thought results came in versus your expectations. It sounds like everyone else is just holding the guide given the potential uncertainty. Is that what you're thinking along those lines as well?

Speaker 7

Yeah, I think that's exactly it. I think we're in an environment with a little more uncertainty than expected. As usual, we remain conservative, though. There's ample time to raise guidance when we're more confident about it and we're comfortable with where we are.

Speaker 2

Somewhat of a follow-up, I guess, on the software side. I mean, you guys were pretty confident in the re-acceleration of software. I was just hoping you'd give us some context on platform and then even non-platform was down this quarter. Just curious what's happening there.

Speaker 7

Yeah, I think I'd put that in the same category of macroeconomic factor. What we see on the non-platform side is a little lower, I should say, not lower usage, but lower growth in usage of CCS. I think that reflects our customers' conservatism around the macro environment. I remain confident that our growth rate on the platform side will be strong, will continue to be strong, will strengthen from where it is today. As you know, we don't work quarter to quarter. Deals slip. We're okay with that. Our customers and our salespeople know that we don't go to extraordinary lengths to try to close deals by quarter end. I think there's all those factors at play. I think the business is still quite healthy, and we feel good about it.

Speaker 2

Okay, thank you.

Speaker 3

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from George Tong with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Hi, thanks. Good afternoon. Wanted to see if you can talk a little bit about whether you've seen any changes in credit origination volumes through April, given all the macro uncertainty out there. If current trends persist, if you can point to where in your guidance range you would expect to land.

Speaker 7

We haven't seen a lot of change there, but remember we're a lagging indicator. In terms of the guidance, I mean, we're comfortable with where we are in the guidance. I mean, one of the reasons we probably didn't change our guidance this quarter is that there's a lot of uncertainty, right? This can go a lot of different directions. We're confident in our guidance number, but it's difficult to know with as much volatility as there is even what we would change it to if we were to change it. We're sticking with what we have.

Speaker 6

Okay, got it. That's helpful. Following up on the platform software business, ARR growth decelerated, you mentioned that was due to macro factors. Can you talk about how much visibility you have into the acceleration in platform growth, and will it take macro conditions improving to drive the growth to accelerate, or do you have internal idiosyncratic drivers that can get that growth higher?

Speaker 7

We have some level of visibility because we obviously book the deals ahead of when the revenue is recognized. I would say we do have some visibility, and that is part of my optimism about the business. I think it is tempered by the macro environment. Sometimes that means deals take longer to close. We have not experienced this yet, but you never know. Deals might not happen because of the macro environment. We have the conservatism that goes with that. In terms of visibility, our visibility says our business is healthy and should re-accelerate.

Speaker 6

Got it. Thank you.

Speaker 3

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Steven Pollock with Baird. Your line is open.

Speaker 0

Yeah, thank you. Steven Pollock on for Jeff. Just on that point, are you seeing any changes in the customer approach towards the platform sales cycles, things like are you seeing longer cycles, longer decision times, any changes in sort of the contract terms, anything around that?

Speaker 7

Not so far. I would say that we've talked about this in the past, that the platform is increasingly a strategic purchase by our customers, and it's part of a bigger strategic plan to be more consumer-focused and to optimize all kinds of interaction with the consumer. I wouldn't say we're immune from macro conditions, but I do think that we're such a critical part of the strategy for our customers that it's not really going to the back burner. It's not getting canceled just because conditions are not perfect. That said, that's today, and who knows how that affects us in the future. Today, we're not seeing it. The deal cycles have not really slowed, no.

Speaker 0

Okay. On some of the insurance partners or customers that you've announced, if you could just talk about the go-to-market for some of the non-financial services customers, is that direct? Is that through partners? Kind of maybe what's driving maybe some of the traction in some of the non-financial services segments?

Speaker 7

It's both. It's both. As you know, we have been putting increasing emphasis on our indirect channel. There is more activity there, and we are getting more deals outside of our direct sales force.

Speaker 0

All right. Thank you.

Speaker 3

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Simon Clinch with Redburn Atlantic. Your line is open.

Speaker 4

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I was wondering if we could just go back to your comments that nothing's really changed in terms of client behavior or volumes through April. I was wondering if we could perhaps break it down. Was that an overall comment around sort of the aggregate level volumes, or is there any sort of detail at the sort of vertical level which you can share with us?

Speaker 7

You're talking about the scores business?

Speaker 4

Yeah, sorry, in scores.

Speaker 7

I mean, honestly, we do not have real-time data, frankly. I mean, you would be better off getting information from the bureaus on that. They can track it down on a day-to-day basis. As Will said, we get the reporting in arrears. We have some anecdotal information, but we do not have the type of real-time data that they would have.

Speaker 4

Okay. Understood. Thanks. Then just secondarily, going back to the software business, and I mean, the booking strength was notable this quarter. That sort of maintained despite everything that's going on. I just wanted to give us a little context around pipeline builds and that sort of touching on the demand side as opposed to just the deal slipping. Thanks.

Speaker 7

The demand side's strong. The pipeline is strong. The current bookings, as you can see, are strong. It's all in a good direction. Yeah, I mean, again, where we saw the headwinds were around CCS, and it's just about how a lot of our existing customers are reaching out to their consumers. If their accounts' growth slows down, then you're going to see slowdown in CCS volumes. A lot of this has nothing to do with the product necessarily. It's just about how they interact with their consumers.

Speaker 4

Understood. Thank you.

Speaker 3

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Jason Haas with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Speaker 1

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. I'm curious if you could give us any sense for what sort of price increase you took in auto, just so we can get a sense for maybe in the quarter, how much was volume versus price driven since there was an acceleration there?

Speaker 7

We do not comment on price increases until we make them. You are talking about the ones that are already made, the ones that we have this quarter. There is definitely an impact from the pricing that we have done so far.

Speaker 1

Oh, I see.

Speaker 7

Yeah. Of course. Yeah. I mean, as the price increase feathers in, as it becomes recognized over the course of the year, price becomes a bigger component. Change in price becomes a bigger component of our revenue increase. Yeah, that is happening as we speak. We do not specifically call out the percentage of price increase versus volume increase.

Speaker 1

Got it. Okay. That's fair. As a follow-up, it looks like the growth in person outlet spend has maybe moderated a little bit. I wasn't sure if that was just timing or you're finding some efficiencies there. Thanks.

Speaker 7

Yeah, that doesn't even have anything to do with headcount. In essence, some of it's around fringe. Some of it's around some of our truing up our supplemental retirement plan. It has nothing to do with headcount per se. It has more to do with some of the fringe costs around that. We got a benefit this quarter that we probably won't have next quarter of a few million dollars.

Speaker 1

Got it. Thank you.

Speaker 3

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Faiza Alwy with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Speaker 1

Yes. Hi. Thank you. I wanted to ask about the scores business. It looks like there was a pretty substantial increase in the non-origination B2B scores revenue. I am curious if there was something specific that you can point to there.

Speaker 7

There's just a lot of, I mean, nothing really anything in particular. There's a lot of things that were kind of, some of it's in some licensed sales and some in international markets. Some of it's a little bit more of pre-screen. There's just a lot of things. Nothing specific to call out, but there's just a lot of things that kind of added to the non-originations this quarter.

Speaker 1

Okay. Understood. Will, I wanted to ask about.

Speaker 7

We do have some of those.

Speaker 1

Sorry.

Speaker 7

I was just going to say we do have a lot of quarter to quarter, we do have some fluctuation in that number. There will always be some quarters that are a little bit higher than others.

Speaker 1

Okay. Okay. Will, I wanted to ask you about just the regulatory environment. There's obviously been a lot of shifts post-election, and you've had some of these new regulators settle into their new roles. Curious how you're thinking about the evolving situation, if you've had any conversations, and anything you can share in terms of your perspective there.

Speaker 7

We're always in conversations with the appropriate regulators and agencies, and nothing has really changed. We continue to be in touch with them and talk about our industry and how we ought to go forward with it. I would say that the regulatory environment is a good one for FICO. We're pleased with where we are. It's all basically good news for us.

Speaker 1

All right. Thank you.

Speaker 3

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Surinder Thind with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Speaker 5

Thank you. Will, maybe could you possibly comment on just kind of the DBNR number? Obviously, it's slowed down a little bit. Is there a way to disaggregate the client behavior there in the sense that clients have stopped or slowed down kind of the implementation of use cases in the current environment, or is it more a case of they're just running existing use cases maybe less frequently?

Speaker 7

Yeah, I would say it's usage itself. We're not losing customers, and they're not postponing what they do. Things that are usage-based, we're seeing less usage. I really think that's an ebb and a flow thing. It has to do with the environment.

Speaker 5

Got it. That's helpful.

Speaker 7

In most cases, it's not like they're really declining. In a lot of cases, it's just not growing as fast as they were in the past.

Speaker 5

Yes. I stand corrected there. It's just the growth rate has slowed down. It was this idea of whether clients are just slower to maybe adopt new use cases as they move from one division to the next as well, right, versus just.

Speaker 7

I don't know it's so much that. I think it's more the usage itself. I really think it's an environmental factor.

Speaker 5

Got it. Maybe a question for you, Steve. Just on the expenses, the SG&A numbers, how do we think about the run rate excluding the expenses that are associated with the FICO World Conference?

Speaker 7

Yeah. We will have higher expenses in the back half of the year. We do obviously have FICO World. We have some marketing expenses primarily on the score side that we've got in the back half of the year that'll add some more expense to it. We're adding headcount as well, but it's not all that dramatic, as we've said, obviously, for several quarters. We are adding headcount where we can bring in good people, but it's not all that material. From that point of view, you're not going to see a lot of increase in expenses.

Speaker 5

Got it. Excluding FICO World, not a material increase in expenses in the back half.

Speaker 7

I'm sorry. Say that again.

Speaker 5

Excluding FICO World, not a material increase in expenses because that's a big one-time line item, right?

Speaker 7

Yeah. I mean, there's other expenses. We'll have some marketing expenses too. I mean, if you look at what's implied in the guide, there are additional expenses that will be in the back half of the year. Obviously, FICO World is a big part of that.

Speaker 5

Got it. Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 3

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Resi Shabder with RBC. Your line is open.

Speaker 5

Thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to ask a question on software as well. How do we think about the timing of converting some of that ACV? We've seen pretty strong ACV in the first half of 2025. The timing of that converting over to ARR?

Speaker 7

It's probably six to nine months before the conversion takes place. It depends on the individual customer. Some customers, if they're a little more sophisticated or easier to implement, it could be a little bit quicker than that. Usually, it's in that six to nine-month range.

Speaker 5

It does take three months to kind of ramp that up. I kind of think of it more like 9 to 12 when it's fully ramped. Steve's right. Six to nine when it kind of kicks off. That's very helpful, Color. Maybe just a quick clarification on the auto origination revenues. There was a comment there during the Q&A about pricing getting feathered in. If our understanding is right, there was only partial benefit of pricing in the quarter, and we should continue to see that incremental benefit as we go forward. Is that a right assumption? Thanks.

Speaker 7

Yeah. I mean, auto is the same as everything else. We repriced it effective January 1. Sometimes it does not all roll in right away on January 1. Sometimes it takes a little bit of time for the full benefit of that to hit. The auto pricing is the same way as the mortgage and credit card as well.

Speaker 5

That's very helpful, Color. Thank you.

Speaker 3

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Kyle Peterson with Needham. Your line is open.

Speaker 1

Great. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to start on the buyback and capital allocation. Historically, you guys have been fairly steady and formulaic as to how much you guys have returned to shareholders. Obviously, we've seen being a more volatile equity market environment. How are you guys kind of thinking about balancing returning cash to shareholders versus potentially being opportunistic and maybe stepping up a little bit more if we do get some short-term blips? Any color there on how you guys are thinking about that would be really helpful.

Speaker 7

Our philosophy there has not really changed. We've said in the past and continues to be true that we're not market timers. We have a big view of the future value of our company, the value today, and the future value. We are really committed to the stock buyback. We do not spend a ton of time thinking about, "Is this a great time to back up the truck?" versus, "Should we stay out of the market because it feels pricey?" We pretty much buy consistently, and we're pretty happy with that. That said, there have been times in our history, as you know, where we felt like the market was punishing us with a bad understanding of our prospects.

There are times although we have historically tried to match our free cash flow to our stock purchases, there have been times when we have exceeded that by quite a bit. For a one to two-year period, we did just a few years ago. That is not out of the question. I think you will see us continuing to buy regularly into the future. As opportunities present themselves, we do sometimes heavy up.

Speaker 1

Okay. That's really helpful. Maybe a follow-up on software. I know several other guys have asked about this, but any color on kind of what you guys are seeing maybe a little more under the hood is some of the sales cycle changes and such? Have there been any changes in whether it's by geographies or bank size or anything like that over the last, call it, two months or something? Is a lot of the decision-making pretty consistent with what you guys have historically seen and kind of shared on recent calls before this?

Speaker 7

No. I don't think we've seen any discernible trends that way. Actually, if you look at the bookings, they've been pretty good. Where we've seen some slowdown is in some of the usage. We haven't really seen any changes in behavior depending on region or geography or type of size of bank.

Speaker 1

Okay. That's really helpful. Thanks, guys. Nice quarter.

Speaker 3

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Joshua Dinnerling with BOA Securities. Your line is open.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Hey, guys. Just wanted to touch base on the platform. I know you are continually rolling out new solutions on that side. Could you remind us what you're rolling out solution-wise this year on the platform, and then just maybe provide some context on how, when you've added solutions in the past, it's just impacted growth?

Speaker 7

Yeah. I would say that the largest number of solutions and use cases are related to the credit risk life cycle and things that we've historically done with our legacy applications. Originations, line management, that sort of thing. I would say that our fraud solutions on the platform are still in process. Some of the fraud solutions are available on the platform. Some new ones are available on the platform that you couldn't get before. Some of the old ones are not available yet. I would say that's more of a work in progress in terms of where we are. I would expect that virtually all of our fraud solutions will be available on the platform next year.

Speaker 2

Okay.

Speaker 5

Josh, there'll be announcements about innovation on FICO Platform at FICO World.

Speaker 2

Oh, okay. Appreciate that, Dave. Do you guys have any other questions?

Speaker 7

Yeah. Actually, I think.

Speaker 2

Oh.

Speaker 7

I would encourage anyone who's interested to, if you're not attending FICO World, check out the FICO World YouTube videos because we'll go into a lot of detail on what's being released.

Speaker 2

You guys typically end up getting with people who are coming to FICO World, you see a sales growth bump from that? Does that convert to a lot of sales?

Speaker 7

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I would say that it's our number one sales pipeline building effort. What happens is we put a ton of energy into making available all of our top technical personnel so that customers, prospective customers, can really get a deep understanding of what we can do for them. We couple that with meeting other customers who have implemented our solutions. There is a lot of transfer of knowledge. Frankly, we do not do a lot of selling. It is really being done by our customers explaining to other customers and potential customers what they are doing and where they are having success and where they are not. It used to be just a show and tell.

I would say that most of the customers who come get a very personalized, customized several days focused specifically on the needs of their bank, the needs of their financial institution, and how we best can serve them, typically with references and introductions to other customers who've already done what they'd like to do. It winds up being a huge channel pipeline building activity.

Speaker 2

Thanks for that.

Speaker 3

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Scott Ortzle with Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Speaker 2

Hey. Good afternoon, guys. Thank you for taking my question. Just one for me. The color on some of the channel partners that you're working with in the software business was helpful. Just wondering how you feel overall about the partner network in the software business and how that's running right now. Thanks.

Speaker 7

We continue to believe it's a big opportunity for us. We don't have as much indirect sales as we would like. We continue to invest in the indirect channel with a view to increasing it. We've talked about this in the past. We have a really dynamite direct sales force. That said, it's quite small. If you compare our IP with our distribution strength and direct sales, it's fairly obvious that those are mismatched. Although we're taking a lot of initiative around that, we're adding salespeople, we're growing our direct sales, we recognize that the real opportunity is to expand the indirect sales. We have. We've been investing in it. We have a lot of people working on it right now. For different kinds of things. We have geographic reach that's occurring. We have diversification into non-financial services verticals. We have work going with SIs.

Interestingly, the work with the SIs is not just the transfer of our professional services work to them, but they're actually taking our IP and building proprietary solutions for themselves that they use with their customers. I think it's really nice. It's a partnership where we get the professional services, extra capacity, if you want to call it that, coupled with them as a channel, a true channel for moving our IP to market.

Speaker 2

Great. Thanks for the color.

Speaker 3

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Kevin McVey with UBS. Your line is open.

Speaker 5

Great. Thanks so much. Would you expect some of the slower kind of usage in CCS to kind of capture that in the back half of this year, or is that something that you think potentially gets pushed out to 2026?

Speaker 7

Oh, wow. Your guess is as good as ours. It's just so hard to say. Our business is built around doing some amount of kind of base-level revenue for getting something underway and then built on usage. We can't really control the usage except to the extent that we teach our customers how to get more value out by expanding the usage. The economic activity level of the usage is something we can't really control. I don't really have visibility there. I don't know which way it goes.

Speaker 5

That's helpful. With the partner channel on the implementation work, is that help explaining some of the recent trends in the professional services? Because it seems like the bookings have really scaled. Is it just the size of the bookings just trying to reconcile the professional services trends against, obviously, what's been pretty good bookings overall?

Speaker 7

Yeah. I would say this quarter, some of it was actually timing. We had some milestones that had to be met in order to reclaim the revenue. And it ticked over from March into April. There is a little bit of a timing there. You will probably see the, I think we even referenced this in the prepared remarks, that we expect the PS, actually, the revenue to come up a little bit in the back half and even in our third quarter.

Speaker 5

Helpful. Thank you very much.

Speaker 3

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Matthew O'Neill with FT Partners. Your line is open.

Speaker 1

Yeah. Hi, John. Thanks for taking my question. Many good questions asked and answered here. I thought I would ask a more open-ended one just around sort of strategic priorities, but recognize that FICO World is next week. Whatever you may be willing to preview as far as kind of the focus for the remainder of the year and beyond would be really interesting. Thank you.

Speaker 7

I think what you'll see at FICO World is a whole bunch of new capabilities. You'll see a little bit more on the way we're using AI. On the score side, you'll see some of the innovation that we have coming. We're just gearing up on FICO 11, so you'll get a little taste of that. Those are the kinds of things that we expect to be announcing next week.

Speaker 1

Got it. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Speaker 3

I'm not showing any further questions at this time. As such, this does conclude today's presentation. You may now disconnect and have a wonderful day.

Speaker 7

Thank you.

Speaker 5

Thank you.